Yusuf Sevincli

Turkey

Clairvoyance

The photographs by Yusuf Sevincli distil the brutality of daily life, transcribing the vertigo caused by the frenzied succession of perspectives and glimpses that we never fix in a single frame. According to the pace of the ordinary, Sevincli randomly stops time, that out of revenge instills his photographs with a restless movement.

The photographs resist the dictatorship of beauty. Faces are torn up with expressions that the close-up stresses. Animals evolve in a jungle of metal, glass and concrete. Buildings seem to shake under the pressure of the urban vortex. Even still-lifes are not still. Just take the example of a bouquet of dead flowers that so strongly evoke their budding time.

The seconds before and after the shot, systematically extend the narrow limits of the frame.

Fast, disproportionate. The photographs picture the absurdity of the city and modernity's unforgiving ubiquity in the urbanscape. Asked to describe a picture by Sevincli, one might be tempted to tell a long story. Another viewer would recount sometime deeply personal. But like in the traditional tales starting with "Once upon a time", the beginning would remain: "A path heading towards…", "A man holding a seagull that…", "People glued to their window watching…". The paramount question for Sevincli remains: "What are they looking at?" As a photographer, he does not look at; he experiences. A manifesto of an improvised life, his photographs capture fleeting moments in black and white, set in an accident. A shuffled gallery of everyday life, these moments, less decisive than accurate, draw a form of reality on the basis of an individual experience. Their movement and coal-like texture release the tension of a sudden suspended time seeming to defy the fixity of the image.

About Us

Chobi Mela, the first festival of photography in Asia, is one of the most exciting ventures that Drik and Pathshala has initiated. The first Chobi Mela – International Festival of Photography was held in December 2000 - January 2001. It is the most demographically inclusive photo festival in the world and is held every two years in Dhaka.